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October 13, 2015

Mercury featuring prominently in October skies
Washington (UPI) Oct 12, 2015
Mercury is set to join the planetary party being held in the predawn sky. For the last couple weeks, Mars, Jupiter and Venus have been congregating in the Northern Hemisphere's morning sky. Now through the end of the month will be one of the few times Mercury will be relatively easily visible. Like Venus, Mercury's appearance is always closely aligned with the sun. For the next few weeks, Mercury will rise each morning in the east, just before the sun. It will linger for 30 for 45 minute ... read more

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Psychic robot will know what you really meant to do What if software could steer a car back on track if the driver swerves on ice? Or guide a prosthesis to help a shaky stroke patient smoothly lift a cup? Bioengineers at the University of Illinois at ... more		More-flexible machine learning Machine learning, which is the basis for most commercial artificial-intelligence systems, is intrinsically probabilistic. An object-recognition algorithm asked to classify a particular image, for in ... more		Bio-inspired robotic finger looks, feels and works like the real thing Most robotic parts used today are rigid, have a limited range of motion and don't really look lifelike. Inspired by both nature and biology, a scientist from Florida Atlantic University has designed ... more
				Mars colonisation still far off: Amitabh Ghosh NASA scientist Amitabh Ghosh said on Friday that though the discovery of liquid water on Mars opens up immense possibilities, colonization of the red planet is still a distant possibility. "Am ... more		Lakes on Mars - SETI Editorial I thought I was going to share my thoughts with you on the new study that was just published by Science. I was busy typing. I hope you will enjoy this commentary, and better, that it will bring you ... more

Solar systems for home and business installations

Planetary Data System Releases Final Raw MESSENGER Dataset Data collected during MESSENGER's 43rd through 49th months in orbit around Mercury were released to the public by NASA's Planetary Data System (PDS), the network of nodes that archives and distribut ... more		Hubble Telescope Spots Mysterious Space Objects Scientists from the Paris Observatory have discovered mysterious undulating objects on space photos made with the Hubble space telescope and ESO's Very Large Telescope, scientific magazine Nature wr ... more		U.S. defense in free fall U.S. and Saudis conduct Middle East's largest counter-drone exercise Saudi Arabia and Pakistan sign mutual defense pact		Astronaut brains as beacons for researchers How astronauts adapt to the stresses of living in space is helping researchers to pinpoint the causes of common disorders on Earth. From the brain's point of view, living in space is very stressful. ... more
				ASU business professor helps astronauts stay on task You'd be hard-pressed to find a seasoned businessman or woman who hasn't sat through a mid-morning meeting, oblivious to the decisions being made or plans being hatched. Often, that out-to-lunch inc ... more		NASA outlines obstacles to putting a human on Mars The engineers, scientists and astronauts at NASA are working on an endless list of fascinating experiments, projects and missions. But one target looms above all: putting a human on Mars. ... more

Nuclear Operations and Maintenance Efficiency Summit USA 2015

Exoplanet Anniversary: From Zero to Thousands in 20 Years October 6 marks the 20th anniversary of the first discovery of a planet orbiting a sun-like, or "normal," star beyond our solar system. The planet, called 51 Pegasi b, belongs to a class of planets ... more		Pluto's Small Moons Nix and Hydra This week's beautiful Charon images remind us that Pluto is not just one body; it's a whole system of worlds. Pluto and its largest moon Charon dance around each other, making circles around their common center of mass, which lies in an empty space ... more		Fossil fuels harm health from 'cradle to grave': report Trash, mulch and security: All jobs for troops in Washington Rising oceans to threaten 1.5 million Australians by 2050: report		New Horizons Finds Blue Skies and Water Ice on Pluto The first color images of Pluto's atmospheric hazes, returned by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft last week, reveal that the hazes are blue. "Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It' ... more
Perfectly accurate clocks turn out to be impossible Can the passage of time be measured precisely, always and everywhere? The answer will upset many watchmakers. A team of physicists from the universities of Warsaw and Nottingham have just shown that ... more		ASU Mars images star in 'The Martian' Images of Mars taken by a visual and infrared camera designed at Arizona State University take a star turn in the new hit movie "The Martian." Last November, the film production company for "The Mar ... more		NASA Challenge Seeks Ways to Use Mars' Natural Resources for Astronauts Living off the land is different when the land is 140 million miles away, so NASA is looking for innovative ideas to use in situ (in place) Martian resources to help establish a human presence on th ... more		Wet paleoclimate of Mars revealed by ancient lakes at Gale Crater We have heard the Mars exploration mantra for more than a decade: follow the water. In a new paper published October 9, 2015, in the journal Science, the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) team presents ... more

	Blue skies, frozen water detected on Pluto Pluto has blue skies and patches of frozen water, according to the latest data out Thursday from NASA's unmanned New Horizons probe, which made a historic flyby of the dwarf planet in July. ... more		Where to look for life Powerful telescopes are coming soon. Where exactly shall we point them? Astronomers with the University of Washington's Virtual Planetary Laboratory have created a way to compare and rank exoplanets ... more

EU to fast-track review of 2035 combustion-engine ban

Norway sovereign wealth fund drops French miner over environmental fears

EU split on 2040 climate goal ahead of UN summit

Fusion reactors 'economically viable' say experts		Mysterious ripples found racing through planet-forming disc		Curiosity Rover Team Confirms Ancient Lakes on Mars		Geology Award Going to Mars Landing Site Expert at JPL		MRO imagery reveals Red Planet's stressed substrate
AIDA Double Mission to Divert Didymos Asteroid's Didymoon		Exhibition on "father of Chinese rocketry" opens in U.S.		Australian broadband satellite begins post-launch maneuvers		ESA entrusts Indra with data storage for the Sentinel 2B satellite		Pluto's Big Moon Charon Reveals a Colorful and Violent History

Search for Mars life stymied by contamination threat

Hitchhiking to Mars

Dawn Turns Eight

Dawn Team Shares New Maps and Insights about Ceres

The Most Stable Source of Light in the World

Keeping cells in good shape

ASU-led partnership engages citizens in NASA's Asteroid Initiative

NASA's Big Mars Story

Lockheed's Space Fence Program Completes Critical Design Review

Small-scale nuclear fusion may be a new energy source

Layman help sought in solving dwarf planet mysteries

The First Meeting of the U.S.-China Space Dialogue

MIT's egg-clutching robot has soft but steady hands

Embedded optical sensors could make robotic hands more dexterous

Rover's Current Location Makes Communications a Challenge

Pluto at Twilight

Mars water find boosts quest for extra-terrestrial life

Earth-class planets likely have protective magnetic fields, aiding life

Russian scientist hope to get rocket fuel, water, oxygen from Lunar ice

Study adds to evidence that viruses are alive

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